Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Paula Nadelstern Exhibit at American Folk Art Museum

Today I did something really cool that involved a day off work mid-week, a trip to New York City, lots of quilting inspiration, and I met three bona fide quilting celebrities! What an adventure!

I met Paula Nadelstern, kaleidoscope quilter; Luana Rubin, founder of eQuilter.com; and Mark Lipinski of Quilter’s Home magazine. At the invitation of eQuilter, I joined Luana Rubin and Paula Nadelstern for a private showing of Paula's exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in NYC. The exhibit is called Kaleidoscope Quilts: The Art of Paula Nadelstern, and includes a number of quilts she has designed, pieced, and quilted over the past 15 years or so. Now these are not your 19th century kaleidoscope quilts, nor are they the stack-and-whack variety. Paula designs and pieces each image using lots of teeny-tiny pieces of fabric, with each wedge (as many as 16) a perfect repetition of the last, to make up intricate images. Many appear to be round but this results from fabric choices as all seams are straight. Seeing the details up close: how small many of the individual pieces of fabric are, how accurate the piecing has to be, how many different fabrics wind up in one quilt – truly impressive and inspiring.

The corporate sponsors of the exhibit include eQuilter.com (a great web site for fabrics and other quilty goodness, they have a broad selection) and C & T Publishing, publishers of several books by Paula Nadelstern, including one that covers the museum exhibit including some how tos. You will find it on Paula Nadelstern’s website or Amazon.com.

I was one of about 15 quilter/customers eQuilter had invited to the tour, including women from around the mid-Atlantic states (NJ, NY, CT, DE), plus Mark Lipinski. eQuilter had a photographer along, taking video, which will be edited and put on the eQuilter site. If you would like to see more, go to the eQuilter site to take a look. The museum does not allow photography, so all I got was this one “people” shot.

Luana Rubin (center of photo) with Paula Nadelstern on right in profile. (Quilt at rear is an antique, not one of Paula’s works, but you can see a little bit of one of her "snowflake" quilts on the far right.)

You can also see photos of her work on Paula Nadelstern’s site.

The exhibit runs at the American Folk Art Museum through Sept. 13, 2009. If you live near enough or will be in NYC for another reason, I urge you to go. The gift shop is quite nice too. I now have a reusable grocery bag with an image from one of the quilts on it.